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THE CIRCUSby Kathy Wolfe
Everybody loves a circus! Tidbits looks back at the origin of the modern circus and a few of the most famous shows under the Big Top.
• Although there were circuses in ancient Rome, the modern circus as we know it has been around since the late 1700s. Philip Astley premiered his circus in 1768 in England and is credited with bringing trick horse-riding into the circus ring. A few years later, he added jugglers and clowns to his entourage. • Joshuah Brown changed the circus business dra-matically in 1825 when he became the first to use a large portable canvas tent for his circus performanc-es. This enabled his show to stay as long or short a time as he liked and present performances in all kinds of weather. • The circus came to the United States from Eng-land in 1792. Brought by owner John Bill Ricketts, the first performance took place in Philadelphia and was attended by George Washington. Ricketts him-self juggled while on horseback during the show. • The circus gained mobility when the railroad came along. Enormous distances could be covered, safe from the weather, meaning no more horse-drawn wagons in the rain on poorly maintained roads.
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As if it isn’t tough enough to make it to the Majors, baseball’s pitcher Jim Abbott had a disability that might have made it impossible had it not been for his determination. Follow along as Tidbits takes a glimpse at this amazing professional hurler’s life.
• In September of 1967 in Flint, Michigan, teenage parents Mike and Kathy Abbott welcomed a new baby boy they named James. Jim was born with-out a right hand, but that wasn’t about to keep him from reaching his goals. As a child, he spent hours practicing catching by bouncing a ball off a wall. Abbott’s parents tried to guide him toward a sport that didn’t depend on the use of his hands, buying him a soccer ball; however, he just didn’t like soc-cer. When he joined the Little League at age 11, he pitched a no-hitter his very first game. • His natural athletic ability led him to the position of starting quarterback on his high school’s football team and to a spot in the semi-finals of the state championship. • Shortly after high school graduation, the Toronto Blue Jays felt that Abbott had potential in the Ma-jors and drafted him. He opted instead to attend the University of Michigan on a baseball scholarship, where he led the team to Big Ten titles two of his four years. Abbott was the winner of the Golden Spikes Award as the outstanding college baseball player in the United States. • During the summer of 1988, Abbott pitched for the U.S. Olympic team at the games in Seoul, South Korea, contributing to the United States’ first ever gold medal in Olympic baseball. Shortly after the Olympics, he joined the California Angels and made his professional pitching debut without ever playing one single game in the minors, only the 15th player to do so.• During that rookie season, he won more games than any other player with no Major League experi-ence. He garnered fifth place in that year’s Rookie of the Year Award voting.• In 1992, Abbott was traded to the New York Yankees, and the following year, this one-handed pitcher went up against the Cleveland Indians in Yankee Stadium and pitched a no-hitter. • Abbott’s right arm ends right about where his wrist should be. Although fitted with a fiberglass and met-al mechanical hand as a young boy, he refused to wear it. So what was Abbott’s pitching technique? He wore a right-handed fielder’s glove at the end of his right arm. He delivered his left-handed pitch, then, while finishing his follow-through from the pitch, quickly switched the glove to his left hand in order to be ready for any balls that were hit back to him. As with most pitchers, a designated hitter was used for his turn at bat; however, Abbott hit a triple in 1991 and hit singles during other seasons. He had a ten-year career with four different teams before retiring in 1999. • These days, Jim Abbott travels the country as a motivational speaker, as well as serving as a guest pitching instructor during spring training for the Los Angeles Angels. He offers the following words of advice to anyone who wants to achieve goals in life: “…find what it is in life that you love and go after it with all of your heart…Don’t let anyone discourage you from believing what you can accomplish.”
OVERCOMING THE ODDS:JIM ABBOTT
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DOG OF THE WEEK
“Little Fockers” (PG-13) -- Ben Stiller and Robert De Niro return for another round of low-brow she-nanigans involving vomiting, erectile dysfunction and scraping the bottom of the Fockers Is Funny Cuz It Sounds Like The F-Word comedy well. May-be next year they can do a spin-off called “Meet The Fartz.”
TV SERIES“Nova: Deadliest Earthquakes”“Bill Moyers: The Language of Life”“Lisa Lampanelli -- Tough Love”“Babylon 5: Complete Series With Movies”“Dirty Jobs” Collection 7 “iCarly” Season Two, Volume Three “Friday Night Lights” The Fifth Season“Batman Beyond: Return of Joker”“Life Unexpected” The Complete First and Second Seasons“Masterpiece Classic: Any Human Heart”“Lark Rise to Candleford” Season Four “Railway Journeys: The Vanishing Age of Steam”“Tyler Perry’s House of Payne 7”“Bert the Conqueror” Season 1“Best of Ask This Old House”“Best of Soul Train: Dance Dance Dance”
TOP TEN MOVIES1. Battle: Los Angeles (PG-13) Aaron Eckhart, Bridget Moynahan2. Rango (PG) animated3. Red Riding Hood (PG-13) Amanda Seyfried, Shiloh Fernandez4. The Adjustment Bureau (PG-13) Matt Da-mon, Emily Blunt5. Mars Needs Moms (PG) Seth Green, Dan Fogler6. Hall Pass (R) Owen Wilson, Jason Sudeikis7. Beastly (PG-13) Vanessa Hudgens, Mary-Kate Olsen8. Just Go With It (PG-13) Adam Sandler, Jen-nifer Aniston9. The King’s Speech (R) Colin Firth, Helena Bonham Carter10. Gnomeo & Juliet (G) animated
TOP TEN VIDEO, DVD of March 19, 2011
Top 10 Video Rentals1. Due Date (R) Robert Downing Jr.2. Unstoppable (PG-13) Denzel Washington3. Faster (R) Dwayne Johnson4. Megamind (PG) animated5. Love and Other Drugs (R) Jake Gyllenhaal6. 127 Hours (R) James Franco7. Burlesque (PG-13) Cher8. Life As We Know It (PG-13) Katherine Heigl9. Red (PG-13) Bruce Willis10. Inception (PG-13) Leonardo DiCaprio
Top 10 DVD Sales1. Megamind (PG) Dreamworks2. Due Date (R) Warner Bros.3. Megamind Double Pack (PG) Dreamworks4. Unstoppable (PG-13) (Fox)5. Beverly Hills Chihuahua 2 (G) (Disney)6. Weeds: Season Six (NR) (Lionsgate)7. Secretariat (PG) (Disney)8. Paranormal Activity 2 (R) (Paramount)9. Life As We Know It (PG-13) (Warner Bros.)10. Red (PG-13) (Summit)
PICKS OF THE WEEK
“Tron: Legacy”/”Tron: The Original Classic” (PG) -- After waiting nearly 30 years, fans of the 1982 Disney sci-fi epic “Tron” finally get the sequel they’ve been dying to see. (Oh sure, to many, “Tron: Legacy” looks like a two-hour Daft Punk video, but I’m cool with that.) The film stars Gar-rett Hedlund as Sam Flynn, the son of a com-puter genius (Jeff Bridges) who went missing decades ago. When Sam discovers his dad’s secret workshop, he gets sucked into a com-puter program where he must find and rescue his imprisoned father. Thankfully, Sam has the help of Quorra (Olivia Wilde) a bad-ass, sexy-cool warrior. Oh, and the light cycles from the first film are back. Yeah. Light cycles, baby.Disney has really pulled out all the stops for “Tron: Legacy”’s home video release, with a wide variety of packages. You can buy the sin-gle-disc versions of both “Legacy” and the origi-nal film, or choose from several different multi-disc boxed sets. The five-disc set contains the original film, plus “Legacy” in Blu-Ray, Blu-Ray 3D and digital copy, along with a special-fea-tures disc loaded with behind-the-scenes good-ies. One of the more intriguing special features is the Disney Second Screen option that allows you to watch the film on your TV while interac-tive extras pop up on your iPad or computer.
“The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader” (PG) -- The Pevensie kids are back for this third installment of the timeless C.S. Lewis fantasy series. This time instead of entering Narnia via the wardrobe, the children are sucked into a painting of the Narnian ship, “The Dawn Treader,” where they must help King Caspian save the people of Narnia.
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¥ It was venerable American newscaster David Brinkley who made the following sage observation: “The one function TV news performs very well is that when there is no news, we give it to you with the same emphasis as if there were.” ¥ According to Guinness World Records, the oldest cat in the world was named Creme Puff and lived to the ripe old age of 38 years and three days. ¥ If you do much printing, you might not be surprised to learn that if you figure out the cost by volume, the average ink cartridge for a printer costs seven times more than Dom Perignon champagne. ¥ On an average day in the United States, 90 million cans of beer will be consumed. ¥ If you’re planning a summer jaunt to Atlantic City, N.J., this year, you might want to stop by Margate City, just a couple of miles south of the gambling mecca. While you’re there you can see the oldest zoomorphic structure in the United States. Lucy the Elephant, built in 1882 by James V. Lafferty, is 65 feet tall and has served at various times as a cot-tage, a business office, a restaurant and a tavern. In 1976 it was designated a National Historic Land-mark. ¥ It was United Airlines that hired the first steward-esses for its flights, back in 1930. In addition to be-ing attractive and charming, stewardesses had to be registered nurses. ¥ Those who study such things say that in ancient Mesopotamia, it was not unusual for those of the wealthy classes to crush semiprecious stones and adhere the powder to their lips.
***
Thought for the Day: “In this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it. The last is much the worst.” -- Oscar Wilde
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THE CIRCUS (continued):• P.T. Barnum didn’t start out in the circus busi-ness, but rather with a showplace in New York City he called Barnum’s American Museum, which opened in 1841. There he featured a variety of at-tractions, including a paralyzed and blind former slave named Joice Heth that Barnum claimed had been George Washington’s nurse. He exhibited her as nearly 161 years old and carefully trained her to play the part. Ten years after her death, Barnum finally admitted to the hoax. He enticed his custom-ers with the use of clever advertising, such as his ad for a “Man-Eating Chicken,” which was mere-ly a man chewing on a drumstick. Barnum’s mu-seum included hot-air balloon rides from the roof, live acts, sideshows and “curious” human beings. In 1842, he introduced the world to General Tom Thumb, who was a dwarf named Charles Stratton. Conjoined Siamese twins Chang and Eng also ap-peared for a time at the museum. • Barnum was past 60 before he got into the actual circus business, when he lent financial backing to an existing circus. “P.T. Barnum’s Grand Traveling Museum, Menagerie, Caravan, and Hippodrome” began in 1871.• In 1882, Barnum introduced the concept of three rings to accommodate an increasing num-ber of acts. Circus tents were larger, and 10,000 spectators could see a portion of the show at all times. Also that year, he spent $30,000 to acquire “Jumbo,” the largest African elephant in captivity, from the London Zoo. Thousands gathered at the New York City dock for Jumbo’s arrival. Within a week, Barnum had recovered his investment. But Jumbo’s success was short-lived. After just three years with the circus, the giant pachyderm was struck and killed by a freight train in Ontario as he made his way back to the circus train. Clever Bar-num, however, turned lemons into lemonade when he had Jumbo’s hide and skeleton mounted and continued to charge for the exhibit of the remains.• The world’s first human cannonball performance came along in 1877. A 14-year-old girl, Rossa “Za-zel” Richter, was hurled from a spring-style can-non in London. Although promoters would have the public believe that the person is launched by gun-powder, that’s just for the visual and auditory show. The real driving force is really a spring or a blast of compressed air.
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Call Now! 208-704-9972LIONS AND TIGERS
What would the circus be without lions and tigers? Let’s investigate some of the traits of these big cats, both members of the genus Panthera. • There are four members of the genus Panthera — lions, tigers, jaguars and leopards. Due to the special anatomical structure of their larynx, these four cats are the only species able to roar. • Lions have been a popular part of animal menag-eries since Roman times and have been sought af-ter by zoos since the 1700s. While kept in captivity, a lion can live longer than 20 years; however, in the wild, a male lion rarely lives longer than 10 years. This is due to continual injuries received in fights with rival males.• A lion cub weighs 2.6 to 4.6 pounds (1.2 to 2.1 kg) at birth and is blind for about the first week of its life. The cub crawls after a couple of days and walks at about three weeks of age. • Lions are the only big cats to exhibit sexual di-morphism, meaning the males and females look very different from each other. Because they are faster and more agile than males, lionesses do most of the hunting. The male seldom hunts, as he is weighted down by his heavy mane, which can cause him to overheat if he overexerts. Most lions are inactive for about 20 hours a day, with two hours a day spent walking, 50 minutes eating and some hunting done at dawn. • A male lion needs about 15 pounds (6.8 kg) of meat per day, the female about 11 pounds (5.0 kg). A meal might consist of zebra, giraffe, gazelle, warthogs or wildebeest. The killing of large prey is no problem for a lion with its 3.1-inch (8-cm) canine teeth. • The tiger is the largest of the four Panthera cats, reaching nearly 11 feet (3.3 meters) in length and weighing up to 660 pounds (300 kg).• At only six months of age, a Siberian tiger can be as big as a full-grown leopard. Their life span is about the same as the lion, 10 to 15 years in the wild, 20 years in captivity. • Even with their size, tigers can run at a speed of up to 40 miles per hour (65 km/hour), and can leap up to 32 feet (10 meters). Their running at such speeds is limited, however, as they don’t have a lot of stamina and can only run for short distances. • Just as fingerprints are distinctive for every hu-man being, every tiger’s pattern of stripes is unique. The average tiger has more than 100 stripes. The pattern is not just in the animal’s fur but extends to its skin underneath as well. Shave a tiger and the stripes are still there! • It’s estimated that there are only about 5,000 tigers living in the wild today. Yet there are more than 12,000 being kept as private pets in the United States. Before deciding to keep a tiger as a pet, consider that it is a 20-year commitment. Any cat over 100 pounds (45.4 kg) needs a living space of 500 to 1,000 square feet (46.5 to 93 square me-ters), an enclosure at least 8 feet (2.5 meters) tall, with a ceiling. Plan to feed your tiger 1 to 3 percent of its body weight in fresh meat daily.
TRIVIA
1. GEOGRAPHY: What is an older name for the country of Ethiopia?2. BUSINESS: Who founded a company called De Beers Consolidated Mines?3. HISTORY: For what crimes was Socrates executed?4. LITERATURE: What did Madame Bovary’s husband do for a living?5. ANATOMY: Where are the conjunctiva locat-ed in the human body?6. GOVERNMENT: Which of the original 13 colonies did not attend the Constitutional Con-vention of 1787?7. SCIENCE: What common alloy is made up entirely of copper and zinc?8. FAMOUS QUOTATIONS: To which U.S. president is the following quote often attributed: “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt”?9. GENERAL KNOWLEDGE: Who coined the term “muckrakers” for crusading journalists and other writers?10. POETRY: How old was the Romantic poet John Keats when he died?
ANSWERS
1. Abyssinia2. Cecil Rhodes3. Corrupting the youth and impiety4. Doctor5. Eyes6. Rhode Island7. Brass8. Abraham Lincoln9. Theodore Roosevelt10. 25
SPORTS QUIZ
1. In 2010, the Florida Marlins’ Jorge Cantu set a record with at least one hit and one RBI in the first 10 games of a season. Who held the record of eight games?2. Who is the all-time major-league record-holder in saves for a left-hander?3. Who is the only starting quarterback other than Drew Brees to lead the New Orleans Saints to at least a 12-win regular season? 4. When was the last time before 2010 that West Virginia reached the men’s basketball Fi-nal Four?5. Who was the youngest player to tally an overtime series-winning goal in the Stanley Cup Finals before Chicago’s Patrick Kane, 21, did it in 2010? 6. Name the first American men’s soccer player to lead a foreign league in scoring for a season.7. In 2011, Chris Barnes became the sixth play-er in PBA history to complete the career Triple Crown. Name three of the first five to do it.
ANSWERS
1. George Kelly of the New York Giants in 1921.2. John Franco, with 424 saves.3. Bobby Hebert guided the Saints to 12 wins in 1992.4. It was 1959.5. Bobby Orr was 22 when he did it for Boston in 1970.6. Herculez Gomez led a Mexican league in scoring in 2010.7. Billy Hardwick, Johnny Petraglia, Pete We-ber, Mike Aulby and Norm Duke.
Information in the Tidbits® Paper is gathered from sources considered to bereliable but the ac cu ra cy of all information cannot be guaranteed.
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FLASHBACK TRIVIA
1. Who sang “Just My Imagination (Running Away With Me)”? What was the year?2. Which single by Booker T. & the MG’s was most likely played at 33 rpm by listeners in-stead of 45 rpm?3. Who sang “Baker Street” and when?4. What was “Billy Don’t Be A Hero” about?5. Which artist released “If I Ever Lose My Faith in You,” and when?6. What was the stage name of Arthur Andrew Kelm? Hint: He sang “Young Love.”
ANSWERS
1. The Temptations in 1971. It was the group’s third song to hit No. 1 on the charts.2. “Green Onions,” which came out in 1962. The pop instrumental stayed on the charts for more than three months.3. Gerry Rafferty in 1978. The song was used in an episode of “The Simpsons” when Lisa got her first saxophone.4. The song by Paper Lace in 1974 was thought to be an anti-Vietnam War song, but it was a Civil War song where the hero is begged not to go fight.5. Sting, in 1993 on his “Ten Summoner’s Tales” album. The song reached No. 17 on the U.S. charts.6. Tab Hunter. The song stayed at No. 1 for six weeks in 1957. Hunter also starred in dozens of films from the ‘50s to the early ‘90s.
• Barnum merged his show with James A. Bailey in 1888, and it became “The Greatest Show on Earth.” Just three years later, Barnum was dead, and Bailey took control of the circus.• As Barnum & Bailey continued to thrive, an-other giant was just getting its start in Baraboo, Wisconsin. In 1884, the Ringling Brothers started a small wagon circus. They combined their many talents — juggling, acrobats, music and theater — into the officially titled “Ringling Brothers United Monster Shows, Great Double Circus, Royal Eu-ropean Menagerie, Museum, Caravan, and Con-gress of Trained Animals.” Within six years, the show had moved up to traveling by rail. By 1907, they had purchased the Barnum & Bailey circus for $410,000. • In 1911, there were 32 different circuses travers-ing the country by rail. The Ringling Brothers Bar-num & Bailey Circus needed 100 rail cars in 1923 to transport their equipment, animals and employ-ees. Their Big Top tent had a 10,000-person ca-pacity and required 14 acres of land to set up the show. • By 1920, the popularity of the circus began to di-minish. The street parade from the rail yard to the circus site, which was always held to herald the arrival of the circus, was discontinued by Ringling Brothers.• Urban development ate up the large areas near the rail yards where circuses set up. The Depres-sion took its financial toll on many of the shows, and the introduction of the talking picture provided a new and novel form of entertainment. • John Ringling managed the family business af-ter the death of several of his brothers. One of the world’s wealthiest men, he lost nearly the entire family fortune during the Great Depression, and when he died in 1936, he had $311 in the bank. His nephew took over the operation, and in 1967, the circus was sold to the Feld family, who oper-ates it today. • One of Ringling’s most famous performers was flying trapeze artist Alfredo Codono, who perfect-ed the triple somersault. He was married to an-other famous circus performer, Lillian Leitzel, an aerialist who performed stunts on rings. In 1931, a brass connection on Lillian’s rope broke, caus-ing her to fall 45 feet onto a concrete floor. Head and spinal injuries were so severe, she perished two days later at age 39. Codono’s feat was finally topped in 1982, when Ringling Brothers’ trapeze artist Miguel Vazquez completed the first quadru-ple somersault in performance history.• The circus changed forever in July of 1956 when the Greatest Show on Earth made its last appear-ance under the Big Top tent. While the Ringling family commented that the “tented circus is … a thing of the past,” LIFE magazine mourned its loss, writing, “a magical era had passed forever.”
THE CIRCUS (continued)
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